IF I WAS SMART... would the process be faster?
If I signed a pre-nup, left immediately. and all the Rabbis agreed with my perspective, would the process be smoother??
Here's how divorcing a high-conflict partner looks like when everything is done right, strategy is sound, and protocol is followed.
I met “Saul” when I was 36 years old. I had a solid career, a strong sense of who I was, and a clear idea of what I would- and would not- accept in a relationship.
I consider myself a strong woman.
We dated for a year and a half. There were no red flags. How can you tell if a person is actually the person they represent themselves as? The only way to find out is to see if their actions align with the pretty speeches. The only way to spot a dysfunctional pattern is to let it play out.
People are complicated. You will never know everything about them, everything they are capable of. You will never know what you are capable of, until situations arise to teach you.
When you are dating, you need to take the leap.
I spoke often about my desire to have children. Saul was clear: He had no interest in being a father at his age, but he promised that he was willing to have a child for my sake.
We were both living in Los Angeles, although Saul ran a business in another state.
He did not seem to have many friends, and he was not particularly close to his religious family. Their distance felt more like a gradual drifting apart due to the lack of shared beliefs than a deliberate rift. I met his religious sister, and we got along comfortably.
I am Conservative, but I agreed to have an Orthodox rabbi officiate at our wedding.
I am clear-eyed and pragmatic. We signed a prenuptial agreement before the wedding. Each of us would keep the assets we brought into the marriage. (The ring, given to me before the wedding, was therefore mine.) Any joint accounts would be treated as shared property; each of us could decide how much to contribute, and in a divorce those accounts would be split evenly.
We also agreed to split the wedding expenses 50–50.
In practice, I paid closer to 70 percent.
We married on July 30, 2023. Within a week, I discovered that Saul was not who he said he was.
He displayed a temper and became verbally abusive.
He expected me to pay half the rent from the day that I moved in. I had known he was frugal, but I also knew from the financial disclosures for our prenuptial agreement that he had about $5 million in assets. He didn’t need my rent money.
Most painfully, his promise to have a child with me had not been sincere. He lied. He had no intention of ever becoming a father.
His words had all been just words. His actions contradicted everything he had said to me.
I didn’t wait around.
I think this is where my story differs. I didn’t try to change things, wonder what I had done wrong, think he might learn and grow, take time to figure out my next step, or any of that. I packed my things, slipped off my ring, and I was gone.
I am fortunate to have a strong family support system to fall back on.
Saul was upset. He wanted to reconcile, and suggested marriage counseling. I agreed to go. I wanted to be certain I was making the right decision, because I HAD left in haste.
I attended one session. At that session, I watched a man work hard to impress the therapist, while making very little effort to hear me or meet my needs. He was heavily invested in LOOKING good rather than BEING good.
I didn’t need any more sessions to confirm what I was seeing. I knew I was done.
I filed for divorce, paid the fees, and worked on submitting the required paperwork. Saul had a month to respond.
Nothing. No response.
We heard nothing from Saul, until the final day, when he filed his own paperwork with no lawyer- consistent with his frugality.
I then submitted my financial disclosures and my lawyer sent copies to Saul. He was supposed to provide his own financial disclosures so that the civil case can move forward.
Again, he went silent. My lawyer could not reach him.
At the same time, Saul- who was not observant at all and did not attend services even on Yom Kippur- began appearing at a synagogue where some of my relatives are very influential members. He cultivated a relationship with them and spoke badly to them about me. It felt like he was trying to draw them into the divorce and exert pressure on me through extended family. He was trying to use them as a third party to influence the process.
After months of ghosting, Saul finally reached out to my lawyer. He told him that if I wanted a Get, he was willing to cooperate… under certain conditions. He wanted the diamond certificate for my engagement ring, which documents the stone’s authenticity and value. (I left him the ring itself, to remind you. This was the authentication certificate that comes along with the ring.) He also wanted $40,000 to reimburse him for what he called, “his share of the wedding expenses.” (This included gifts that his mother purchased for me in honor of the big day.)
These conditions did not sound reasonable to me. The ring was mine, and he already had it in his possession. The $40,000 seemed like a random number to me, that did not reflect my actual expenses and did not honor our agreement to split the cost 50-50.
I went to the Bais Din to see if they can require him to give me a Get by Jewish Law. They sent me the Shtar Berurin- an arbitration agreement- and I signed it.
Saul refused to sign it.
The RCC Bais Din then told me they could do nothing further for me if he won’t sign the arbitration agreement.
I called the Rabbi who married us and asked him what he thinks my next step should be. He said I am under no obligation to pay Saul the $40,000 but he suggests that I do pay him anyway. People often shell out a lot more to obtain a Get, he said. It’s worth it.
Meanwhile, Saul realized that I might not capitulate to his demands. He began sending letters out to my friends and acquaintances. The letters portrayed me as a cruel wife who refused to reconcile with a patient husband. He named people in the community and Rabbis whom he claimed were “on my side”. He sent a two page letter to my relatives, which he befriended at their synagogue after I left him. It accused me of bringing shame to my family and community by pursuing divorce and it encouraged the reader to forward his account to others.
It was a full blown smear campaign.
That’s when I contacted Esther Macner at Get Jewish Divorce Justice. She listened patiently and then connected me with Rabbi Barry Dolinger at the International Beit Din. The idea was that they are willing to send Saul a summons, and if he doesn’t respond they can rule in his absence.
If that failed, they would be willing to consider my case for annulment.
I understand that the heter they may then issue is not accepted by everyone, but I believed their method was sound and I was glad to proceed with them.
They sent Saul his first summons to a hearing at the Bais Din on the matter of the Get. Saul did not respond.
They persisted, and sent him a second and third summons. Then they informed him that his continued silence would be interpreted as refusal to appear, and they would hold him in contempt and issue a Seruv- a notice of contempt.
Saul finally replied. He said he has his own Sephardic Rabbi and wishes to work with him to resolve the matter of the Get.
In principle, this is an acceptable response, since parties summoned to a hearing at Bais Din may seek to switch to a Bais Din aligned with their customs, or one they are simply more comfortable with. There is a protocol for that. If the divorcing couple cannot agree on a specific Bais Din, they have a right to a Zabla, where each side chooses a Dayan, and the two selected Dayanim both need to agree on a third to join the panel.
However, knowing Saul as I did, I felt that he was using this as an excuse to stall without any consequences, nothing more. I knew Saul had no Rabbi, and no real respect for Rabbinic authority.
The tactic still worked to stall the process.
Every avenue that I attempted, both in the civil court and now in religious Bais Din, seemed to get blocked or postponed. This process drained my time and energy and left me feeling hopeless on many days.
Esther Macner tried to get the motor running on the Get process again.
Saul sent her the same list of demands he had made before: he wanted the authentication certificate and $40,000. He also wrote that the Rabbis he spoke to supported his claim that he had a right to receive the money and the certificate. It was Halakha, he argued.
Here’s a direct quote from his communication with Esther Macner:
“Two highly respected Rabbis from our Jewish community, Rabbi Name Redacted, and Rabbi Also Name Redacted, have adamantly judged and agreed that… I must be reimbursed for these payments made in good faith. All are welcome to discuss with them directly. I consult with them on all decisions I make…. I cannot express how much my family and I wish we could have avoided all of this senseless hardship, but unfortunately, I am not the one responsible for it.”
Esther followed up. She called one of the Rabbis he listed, and asked why he believed that Saul was entitled to these things under the circumstances. Didn’t the deception and the unwillingness to have children, then lying about it, count against him? And also, when Saul consulted with him, did he make it clear to Saul that the Get must be given??
“What?? We had a short conversation, and I didn’t really have a chance to speak about the Get with him. Saul told me the name of a Rabbi that supports his demands. I, myself, never said I support these demand, and I certainly do not believe that Saul has any halakhic claim to these things.”
Nevertheless, the Rabbi repeated his earlier advice to me: Since Saul believed he is owed this money, I should simply pay rather than litigate for years on end.
Esther then asked him about the possibility of an annulment under Kiddushei Ta’ut- the laws of fraudulent contracts- given what he knows about Saul’s deceptions and his refusal to have children.
The Rabbi hesitated. Annulments in Halakhah are incredibly complicated, he said. He would gladly support the endeavor, and he could definitely bring evidence to the fraud and deception… if Esther Macner got Rabbi Union of the RCC on board first. He’d gladly work with him, but he wouldn’t shoulder the responsibility of ruling on the matter.
Esther checked with other Rabbinic contacts. They all agreed that there was no Halakhic basis for Saul to require me to cover those expenses.
Esther also learned that Saul had made no appointments with any Bais Din.
Our conclusion: Saul had no Halakhic claim or civil case for demanding this sum. The prenup was very clear: We each keep our premarital asset, so the ring and the certificate were mine. Wedding expenses were to be split, and in any event, I had paid the larger share already.
We informed Saul that I refused to meet his conditions. My lawyer let him know that we would be proceeding in court and then moved to compel disclosure, since Saul had not filed the necessary paperwork. He also moved to seek sanctions if Saul would not respond in time.
At the hearing, Saul failed to appear. The court then fined him $25,000.
When he found out, he claimed improper service and then sought to vacate the sanctions. This forced more hearings!
I was beginning to see a pattern: We would take a step forward, then three steps back, to reinforce the step I thought we had already taken!
Once this pattern was clear to me, I requested bifurcation- to finalize the divorce status while leaving the financial issues for later. We set a trial date to discuss bifurcation.
Saul contacted me. He said he simple wants it all to end. He’d give me the Get if I paid all the related costs, arranged for the sanctions to be lifted, postponed the bifurcation hearing, and if I used the RCC, who are strictly Orthodox.
“I may be moving out of state at the end of the month, so if we don’t resolve this matter by then, I will require travel expenses as part of the related cost for procuring the Get.”
I suspected that this was an attempt at further stalling.
I replied that I am willing to pursue the Get with the RCC and pay for related costs. I was willing to forego the sanctions, but I would only postpone the bifurcation hearing AFTER he gave me the Get. Then I opened a case with the RCC, obtained available dates and times, and sent him the information.
Esther Macner went to work, trying to expedite the appointment so we had a date before Saul moved out of state.
My lawyer went to work drafting a settlement offering Saul the right to keep the ring, and offering to refrain from contesting the money he had taken from our joint account- provided he signed the Get.
Saul delayed again. He said he needed his lawyer to review the settlement, but he was having trouble reaching him. Esther suggested that we try another Bais Din that would have a faster appointment. I arranged an appointment, but Saul pushed it off with the same excuse.
The bifurcation hearing arrived without the Get. Saul appeared in court without a lawyer. He had been consulting with one, but not retaining him for representation in court, which would explain why he had trouble reaching him. He tried to reopen the sanctions issue, but the Judge stopped him. “This hearing is limited to discussing bifurcation. If you want to remove sanctions, another hearing should be scheduled for that.” Then the Judge approved bifurcation. We set a court date to deal with the finances.
After that, Saul moved out of state. It took him a bit longer, but he finally sent back the settlement agreement with his own corrections.
He promised to give me the Get again, once the sanctions were lifted, when I agreed to cover any Get-related costs.
I was afraid that once the sanctions were lifted, my leverage would be gone, and he would refuse to follow through.
Esther Macner was invaluable at this point. When Saul sent her his stipulations, she told him the Get had to be given before the sanctions were removed, or simultaneously with a legal agreement to remove them; otherwise he would be creating an impediment to remarriage and we would pursue every available legal remedy.
Then she worked closely with my lawyer to ensure that the language was enforceable in court. A simple promise to give a Get is not enough. The final wording provided that neither party was obligated to carry out the provisions of the agreement unless and until the Get was given.
The setup was kind of brilliant. We arranged a conference call to finalize logistics. Here’s how it worked:
A Rabbi would travel to the state Saul now lived in as an RCC liaison. This Rabbi would supervise the Get with the local Bais Din and return with it to complete the process by placing it in my hands.
I would sign the paperwork to remove the sanctions and email it to that Rabbi.
When the Rabbi received the paperwork in his inbox, Saul could look it over and then sign the Get in the presence of that Rabbi and the local Bais Din.
Once the Get was authorized, the Rabbi would forward the legal agreement to Saul and bring the Get to the RCC in Los Angeles. I would complete the Get process at the RCC.
Thank God, it all unfolded as planned.
I received my Get.
The entire process took a year. Statistically, that’s not a long time, but while I was in the process, it felt endless and hopeless. Every step seemed to only push the Get farther away.
I was looking for actions, and I got a lot of words and more words. It was the very thing I ran from- words that were not backed by actions, but I felt like I was stuck with a lot of reassurances and nothing concrete to back them up. It was depressing, and limiting, but I grew from the experience. I learned to let go a bit, and put my faith in God a lot more.
I could not have reached the finish line without Esther Macner. Her knowledge, persistence, and expertise were invaluable.
If you are still in the middle of this process, take heart. It does end. The gears of the justice system do turn, however slowly.
Remember to breathe, and make a life for yourself, in the interim.
